'Music Portraits' Book by Rachid Bouhamidi

$ 29.99

'Music Portraits' is a collection of drawings by LA based artist, Rachid Bouhamidi. The book features 200+ drawings of influential musicians from all genres spanning three centuries. The works featured in this book were shown for Rachid's solo show 'Music Portraits' at pskaufman... gallery from February - April 2024.

First Edition, 213 pages.

“The idea of creating an extensive collection of drawings of my favorite composers, musicians, singers and song writers developed organically from a drawing project I began in 2020, In the Spring of that year, I was asked by a gallery in Los Angeles to do a window display show of work (the gallery was closed during the Covid pandemic and was featuring works on paper visible only from the outside) within the weeks after the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of the police. After some thought, it occurred to me that I might make some drawings of the great Afro-American luminaries that inspired me which I could sell and offer proceeds to organizations assisting in the defense of black lives.

So, I immediately drew portraits of Malcolm X, Fred Hampton and Langston Hughes with text from notable quotations. The series initially included a portrait of Billie Holiday, Gil Scott-Heron and Nina Simone which were executed with the materials I had at hand, namely charcoal and india ink, in a brisk and unpolished manner. Before long, I began to undertake the task of drawing a wide range of musical personalities throughout time, place and genres, with an emphasis on those who were perhaps not as well known to the general public but whom are well known and appreciated by me.

The aim and intention of compiling a comprehensive group of these “music portraits” seemed almost insurmountable. Who should be included? Who, for practical reasons, will be left out? And who will I inevitably forget? For that reason, the project of depicting “everyone” of so many incredible talents throughout the history of music (of the past 300 years or so) was fated to be and must remain incomplete and so this series is conceived of as an ongoing visual essay.”

Rachid Bouhamidi, 2024

Type: book